Pop-Up Video: Losing My Religion (1991)

Losing My Religion

Single: REM.

Album: Out of Time

B-side: Rotary Eleven

Released: February 19, 1991

Genre: Alternative rock, folk rock, jangle pop

Songwriters: Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe

"Losing My Religion" was the first single from REM's 1991 album Out of Time. It became the band's highest-charting hit in the United States, reaching number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Out of Time earned REM seven nominations at the 1992 Grammy Awards. The band won Best Alternative Music Album and two for "Losing My Religion:" Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

It ranks number 170 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list and is listed among the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 500 Songs that Shaped Rock & Roll.

Band Formation

On April 5, 1980, REM played their first concert as a band at a friend's birthday party in an abandoned Athens, Georgia, church. 

Before that, Mills and Berry were in a lounge act with their high school music teacher,  playing at weddings and country clubs. They were the only musicians. Stipe once explained: 

"When we started out, Buck couldn't really play the guitar, and I couldn't sing. We were like a speed metal band when we started."

Song Foundation

The song "Losing My Religion" was built on a mandolin riff By guitarist Peter Buck, who was learning to play the instrument. 

When he played back recordings of his first attempts, he heard the interpretation and thought it might make a reasonable basis for a song. Buck told Guitar School in 1991, 

"I started it on mandolin and came up with the riff and chorus. The verses are the things REM uses a lot, going from one minor to another, like those 'Driver 8' chords. You can't say anything terrible about E minor, A minor, D, and G - they're just good chords. 

We then worked it up in the studio with electric bass, drums, and mandolin. And I'm proud to say every bit of mandolin on the record was recorded live. I did no overdubbing. 

If you listen closely, on one of the verses, there's a place where I muffled it, and I thought, well, I can't go back and punch it up because it's supposed to be a live track. That was the whole idea."

Word Creation

The title plays on a Southern expression. "Honey, I just about lost my religion," which means something was so challenging you lost your patience with or faith in it. REM lead singer Michael Stipe wrote the lyrics, which he's said are about "obsession" and "unrequited love."  

When you're "losing your religion" over a person, you're losing belief in them and doubting the relationship. Stipe said the lyrics, about obsessional love, were heavily influenced by The Police's "Every Breath You Take." 

Michael Stipe

"I love the idea of writing a song about unrequited love," he told Top 2000 a Gogo. "About holding back, reaching forward, and then pulling back again. The thing for me that is most thrilling is I don't know if the person I'm reaching out to is aware of me. If they even know I exist."

Unplugged Performance

MTV Unplugged recorded a "Losing My Religion" session with REM and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra members to celebrate their 10th anniversary on the air. The 1991 recording was made in Madison, Georgia, about 20 miles south of Athens.

Glee Version

Cory Monteith

Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) covered the song in the 2010 Glee episode "Grilled Cheesus." His version reached number 60 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and 47 on the Canadian Hot 100.

Video

The video was directed by Tarsem Singh, who also did En Vogue's "Hold On" and the Jennifer Lopez movie The Cell. It's a very ambitious video with striking, vivid, biblical imagery. The concept is based partly on Gabriel Garcia Marquez's A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. The novel is about an angel who falls from heaven and is displayed for profit as a "freak show." 

Michael Stipe wasn't supposed to dance: Originally, he sang lines from various poses, but that didn't work. Director Tarsem Singh was so upset he went to the bathroom and threw up. When he emerged, Stipe said, "Let me try to dance." There was no choreography. Stipe just let the spirit move him. The results were perfect. He says his dancing is a mashup of Sinead O'Connor's moves in her "The Emperor's New Clothes" video and David Byrne's gyrations in his "Once In A Lifetime" performances.